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-   -   "the quality goes in before the name goes on" (http://www.videokarma.org/showthread.php?t=57230)

tdpatt48 01-15-2006 01:07 AM

"the quality goes in before the name goes on"
 
an old guy that lives across the street[i help him out from time to time]has an old quasar color tv thats nearing 40 years old.i wouldnt even mention it but the picture is unreal!he has a set of rabit ears on top,gets 4 channels,and he thinks this is gods creation!i have to admit, the picture this old set displays is wonderful.is this the norm for old quasars?if so im going to keep my eyes open for them.

juncers 01-15-2006 01:26 AM

I know nothing about TVs, but in the 70's a HS friend's father who owned a large retail appliance store told me that Quasar was the best---period. He sold many brands, but he had 3 Quasars in his house.I have never owned one, but I pass this on. He knew his stuff and I certainly wasn't in the market for one ( being 15 years old), so he had no reason to bs me.

Ray

tdpatt48 01-15-2006 01:31 AM

thank you for the imput juncers.what amazes is that he says hes watched this tv every day and never had the back off.you know,quality really was important back when.

oldtvman 01-15-2006 08:52 AM

The Qausar concept was a continuation of the Motorola products, as I have said in previous threads, one of the reasons for it's success was the smooth, no detail pictures that Motorola's were famous for, I had a chance to work on several of those beasts, they had a lot of solder problems on the motherboards, causing all kinds of weired symtoms.

oldtvman 01-15-2006 08:54 AM

As far as quality of products for the period, Even though I was an RCA guy, I think the Zenith's were the best built sets back then

jstout66 01-15-2006 11:08 AM

I would have to agree about Zenith. That's why you see so many around. Those early Motorola "works in a drawer" (they came out in 68 and were still labeled as Motorola before switching to the Quasar badge a few years later) were VERY pricey. They were not cheap sets by any means. Your neighbor is lucky if the back has never been off and he's had no repairs, as that is NOT the norm for that set. (hell... ANY set for that matter) You won't find many around tho.... they were pricey to begin with, so there weren't alot in homes, and they were plagued with problems, and even pricier to repair. Most tv shops HATED them. I've seen a few with fantastic pictures, but again that is not the norm for ANY Motorola set. I had one that has just been shipped out to a fellow Aker. Had the most beautiful cabinet on any set I've owned, and it had a fantastic picture. However it broke after a few days use, and even with the help of a fellow Aker I was not able to get it going. (I have limited repair ability) Hope the Aker who it was sent to gets it going tho, and will post pix.

Charlie 01-15-2006 11:37 AM

My friend that had the local tv shop here tells me that the Quasars he sold years ago were great. He said they rarely came back for repair.

kx250rider 01-15-2006 12:45 PM

On Quasars, the 19" sets with the plastic front overlay (1975 or so), for some reason in my opinion, have a BEAUTIFUL picture. Color actually looks like the early phosphor RCAs with I & Q demodulation (CT-100, 21CT55, & ilk), although the Quasar is neither. The chassis wasn't too nice though as I recall. Lots of intermittent problems and bad connections. Poor alignment was always a problem (tunable ghosts, beat patterns, etc) But it was only that particular 19" set with the smoke plastic that had the incredible picture. All the others seemed to have a flat picture with mediocre detail. And my other Quasar COMPLAINT was the sharp edges on the chassis metal, and the works-in-the-drawer that always jammed. Slice your finger on the springsteel "blade" catch to release the drawer, then poke the module contact pins deep into the flesh of the thumb :rant:

Charles

peverett 01-15-2006 02:15 PM

Motorola sold their TV business to a Japanese company in 1974. The Quasar from 1975 is likely a Japanese set.

Chad Hauris 01-15-2006 03:26 PM

The mid-70's and later Quasars were made by Matsushita, the company that makes Panasonic...however I believe they were still made at the Franklin Park Illinois factory where the Motorola Quasars were, weren't they? All of the Matsushita ones I have seen seem to be still working OK or have easily repairable problems. They still kept the Motorola names "hue" and "intensity" for the color controls even on the Matsushita sets.

oldtvman 01-15-2006 03:55 PM

Chad

When Mashushita (quasar) took over the motorola tv's there was a clear quality increase. But I stand by my original assessment that the Motorola color sets were less than spectacular.

kx250rider 01-16-2006 01:20 AM

The one I'm talking about doesn't look Matsushita.. It had the copper colored metal chassis with a lot of modules. Wasn't the first Matsushita the Supermodule set (c. 1979)? Then all the ones before with the JA, F, and etc modules Motorola?

Charles

blue_lateral 01-16-2006 02:13 AM

I worked at a Zenith dealer in the early 80's that had been a Motorola/Quasar dealer earlier. I saw a lot of old quasars come in for service. The first ones after the Matsushita takeover were pretty much the same. Then there were some ones that looked like a cross between a Matsushita and Quasar, they still had a similar drawer, but had different modules. Then some completely Matsushita things came along in the late 70's. Thats when this particular shop switched to Zenith I think.

There were three kinds of Motorola Quasar AFAIK. THe first ones had a wide drawer and were all solid state (in the mid 60's!). After that came a narrower drawer with about the same electronics in it. Along with that came the "Quasar II", a low priced set with 4 tubes in it. It was built in the same kind of drawer as the newer solid state set. I should mention that all there sets had a power supply chassis in back that was not part of the drawer. The Quasar II had a damper and HO tube back on the power supply chassis. There was also a module in the drawer with 2 sync tubes on it. There were 19" table model versions of all of these with no drawer, too.

All the boards were removable, and you could fix most problems by unplugging the modules and plugging them back in. The solid state ones would blow up the horizontal output module a lot. The Quasar II would just pop HO tubes. They would break the glass! This seemed to happen more when the set got older. It would be really expensive now. Nevertheless, IMHO the Quasar II was more reliable that the more expensive solid state set.

I owned a Quasar II myself for a while, and it had the most bizarre failure I have ever seen. A carbon resistor shorted. Anyone ever seen that? Anyway it put some fairly high voltage (400v?) from the tube circuitry on the 21.5v regulated b+ line. The solid state parts didn't like that too much. I actually fixed it (with a big bag of transistors from Radio Shack), but it didnt have any chroma after that because it blew up a couple of IC's. Later on I found it a chroma module.

Those sets matrixed the signal back to RGB and fed it to the CRT grids, rather than mixing chroma and luminance in the CRT like most old sets did. I never saw one with a picture I would consider outstanding.

Charles- Yes, those modules you mention are the Motorola ones.

John

vintagecollect 01-16-2006 07:18 AM

Have year, model or picture of 60's solid state drawer tvs?? Pictures please.

captainmoody 01-16-2006 08:58 AM

1968 Motorola model WL859FP, Granada Pecan cabinet. Retail 679.95


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